


Shadow out of Time

by seraphim_grace



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: F/M, Gen, deliberately purple, lovecraft, victorian prose, written for reverse fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/seraphim_grace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Schwarz works for a nefarious cult intent on raising Cthulhu from his watery grave in a mystic ceremony at the Tower. But they have a plan to stop this insanity - on their own terms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow out of Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laurose8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurose8/gifts).



> original prompt: Schwarz works for a nefarious cult intent on raising Cthulhu from his watery grave in a mystic ceremony at the Tower. But they have a plan to stop this insanity - on their own terms. | Other notes: an inter-Schwarz conversation set right before the Tower, or in it. If it goes steampunk-y, that’s fine. Refined Victorian gentleman Crawford is a must though! Feel free to play with the setting, prompt and characters included all you like - I just want to see a Victorian Crawford/Schuldig!  
> Set in 1887/8

The studio of Bradwyn Crawford, master of letters, was western facing which allowed the afternoon sun to lazily pour upon the parquet floor and ancient Persian rug that was his latest acquisition from his travels to the Far East where his employers had most lately required him under the deception that he was purchasing antiquities for several of his fellows in America, for although he currently resided in the rich and expensive lands of the Thames valley no more than three hours travel from the heart of London, he was by birth a proud denizen of the lands which had long since called itself New England.

The studio itself was a well-appointed room with a heavy mahogany desk, upon which sat several open books beautifully bound in calf skin and illustrated in gold, a book case with its glass doors locked shut against the pervasive dust that no housekeeper, no matter how diligent, could completely banish, heavy wool rugs and a long divan upon which a lithe fellow had draped himself in a position of utter languishment as he smoked perfumed Egyptian cigarettes and stared at the black Japonaise lacquered wooden screen which stood, half out of the packing crate in which it had arrived to the Crawford household, as the smoke plumed and draped around him in purplish clove scented swirls and eddies.

The companion himself, a Herr Schuldig who refused any and all attempts to provide anyone with his proper name and only used his cognomen no matter what the company, was himself just past the age of gilded youth, with a ruddy complexion, and a full brick red mouth under his hair, which despite styling, appeared to be a birds nest made of straw the colour of an old Venetian mirror frame. He had removed his jacket and draped himself across the couch in his vest, and although his pocket fob had fallen to lay on the cushion he had made no attempt to remove it, only moving to take sips from the brandy tumbler that rested in his palm.

"So how was Arabia?" he asked.

Crawford himself was a tall, imposing gentleman in a perfect white seersucker suit. He appeared as fresh and immaculate as if he had just removed himself from his dressing room, and he stood at the bookcase with his back to his companion. His black hair was styled with a light lemon oil and the late afternoon light reflected off the lenses of his spectacles in a white sheen that hid his eyes. Unlike Schuldig the idea that he might be a gilded youth could not apply, and there were many in his acquaintance who thoroughly believed he had grown in a gentleman's drawing room in the full throes of manhood in a white seersucker suit, for he was never seen in anything different whilst in company. For although he gave the appearance of a perfect gentleman he had a single vice, he was a boxer and close friend of Lord John Douglas, the Marquess of Queensberry, who despite his title could never quite achieve the perfect manners of his friend.

"Hot, dry, dusty," Crawford answered in a perfect monotone. "There are too many people and not nearly enough wealth, it has not changed since last you were there so I do not see why you continue to ask me."

Schuldig barked out a laugh, it was a dark braying sound that did not suit the image of the affected youth that he sought to portray. "It is called small talk, do you not do this with your wife?"

Crawford rubbed his left palm with the fingers of his right hand, as if remembering some injury. "My wife and I rarely converse," he said, "and of the many things that my dear Hanae has to recommend her none speaks to me more than her frequent absences."

Schuldig had a smile like a viper across the sands of the Egyptian desert, "and her complete disinterest in your affairs does not rate so highly?"

Crawford looked over his shoulder at his companion, "perhaps you too should take a wife, Schuldig, if only to understand that one does not speak of such matters with married men. It is rather declasse." Schuldig only laughed again. "I do not care for you to speak so of my wife, as if she were a trinket to be simply disposed of. I have my reasons for marrying her and her beauty is not one of those." Schuldig rolled his bottle green eyes under slim red eyebrows even as his mouth quirked into a smirk. "Hanae is almost always aware of what I am doing and who I am doing it with," he rubbed his palm again, "but she has the rare ability to occasionally do things I have not seen coming, it alone would be why I married her, despite her beauty or her wit or her frequent travels."

"M was not best pleased with your decision to marry, you were supposed to bring back trinkets of power from Japan, not a wife." Crawford was aware that Schuldig was baiting him, for such was the nature of their interactions, it was Schuldig's nature for it was in moments of extremity that most people loosened the shields that they kept on their thoughts and allowed him most access. It was yet to work with Crawford, but that did not mean that he did not attempt it at every opportunity for it was his nature. It was his ability, as that of a mind reader, that gave him such liberties that he took, for often he would smooth over the insult. Crawford, however, remained inviolate for his shields were like the walls of Jericho and although Schuldig knew that there was a token to bring them down, the horn of Gabriel remained unsounded for the mindreader. "And from Zagazig, did you find what it was that you went for?"

"The teachings of the Mad Arab?" Crawford moved over to the desk, resting against it as he looked at the German lounging in his studio, "Certainly, but that does not mean that I would give an item of such power to idiots such as M, he might fund the expedition but I have no interest in bringing the Old Gods to our plane, he simply believes it will give him power and life unending, but immortality inside the belly of a god being constantly digested is no future that I wish for myself, so I found another book of similar inscriptions written by another madman and gave it to him."

"And the book itself?" Schuldig asked, it was not uncommon for Crawford to undermine the work of M to whom he was beholden, if he believed or had Seen the artifacts to be too dangerous for the man. M had desires to be immortal, however he seemed to believe that the price that would necessarily be paid could be done so by others, when such was not the way that the world worked. It meant that the man often ran across legends of true power without understanding their danger, and Crawford might be a seer of no mean ability but it did not make him stupid. Crawford often thwarted the man, both in society and in their plans but M, blinded perhaps by his desire for power seemed oblivious. He assumed, wrongly, that he had Crawford entirely in thrall.

"And the _Kitab al-Azif_?" Schuldig asked, "I understand it cannot be destroyed."

"Yes, it remains most impervious to fire." Crawford said, "and immersion, and simply tearing the pages reveals nothing but blank paper in your hand and the page remains in place. It is a most curious tome, I had to meditate for three days to discover a way to remove its power. The Elder Gods are not something that one wants unleashed upon the world, unlike most gods they have no concept of even amorality, they simply are and they feed and they destroy that upon which they feed, first mentally, then spiritually, then bodily, perhaps a lingering sense of my own mortality made the decision for me that it would be best to lock the book in a metal box and drop it over the side of the boat on my return from the continent. Imagine my surprise when the dratted thing showed up again, with its box, in my trunk."

"So," Schuldig did not complete the sentence knowing that Crawford would.

"A fellow of my acquaintance in Massachusetts has a most interesting daughter, she has just married and will, before the century is done have a son, a strange boy," he smiled to himself, "but one with a fascinating promise, I gave the book to him, told him it was simply an old manuscript and that he should hold it in trust for me, or my children, for my wife found it most distasteful."

"Aren't you worried that he might enact the rituals?"

"Van Buren Phillips is a great reader, he believes the book is merely the fairy tales of the orient, no more truthful than the Arabian Nights."

"You gave the most powerful artefact the world has known to a man who believes it fiction?"

"I have done more than that." Crawford's smile was almost as viperish as that of his German companion. "I have given it to a man who will raise a grandson who, haunted by the book and its visions, will make them fiction. Their mythology and ritual and story will be published for the world to see as stories of horror and fantasy. He will make those names we cannot say for fear of drawing the attention of those who would use it, or the Gods themselves, so commonplace that they will have no power. He will make it so that the darkest of them will be immortalised as toys for children, the amusements of the lonely youth. He shall rid them utterly of their power and the book will be considered the juvenilia of an author."

"But it will almost certainly drive his family mad." Schuldig said, protesting even though he could recognise the power of what Crawford was attempting.

"Yes, but syphilis is so common in New England, and madness often follows in its wake." He had a grin like a chiroptera, Schuldig mused to himself, but it was an ingenious solution. Locking the book away did not work, burying it or immersing it did not remove its power, so he would simply make it unreal. He would create generations who would know the names and the stories and think them fiction. He could not help but admire the gall of Crawford's design. "Young Howard will be famous for his work, even if it does kill him. But certainly a small family is a small price to pay to prevent the release of the Elder Gods, and the _Kitab al-Azif_ will be buried with him, considered nothing more than the fancy of a writer's mind, with no more power than The Times newspaper."

"I must admit that your plan fills me with sexual desire." Schuldig said, "Perhaps we can go to town to catch a show. I do believe Henry Irving is performing in town, and we can have supper afterwards with Stoker, he always amuses you so."

Crawford sighed long and lustily before pressing the pads of thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. "Berger is in town," he said finally, "and you know how he is, it is much better that we eat here. I shall have cook prepare us something."

"Horrible man," Schuldig agreed, "Is he still searching for a trichobezoar?" asked the German, swinging his legs around and placing his feet on the mat as he put his brandy tumbler on the small table, exchanging it for a porcelain can of moroccan coffee.

"Yes, he is still of the opinion that one will save him, so I worry for the whores of London, especially those with wigs. I see five coming to a nasty end before M loses his patience with him. He might be a mindreader like yourself, but I do believe the fellow to be quite mad."

"Perhaps he read the _Kitab al-Azif_." smiled Schuldig, "he is aware that they are completely useless and the poison he believes to be killing him is nothing more than him overusing his ability." The German stretched, "I am sure that the two of us can amuse ourselves for the evening, even with your darling wife in Switzerland and without visiting the city. Does cook still make that most delightful chutney?"


End file.
